


Is It Still a Fix It Fic if I Just Hurt Them in Other Ways

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Head Injury, Hiding Medical Issues, MAG 79, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: This was a request from a comment on another one of my fics! The request was for Jon getting a concussion in a bad situation. I chose "what if he hits his head and is found by Tim, Martin, and Sasha in the tunnels and nothing irreversibly bad happens to any of them"
Comments: 9
Kudos: 236





	Is It Still a Fix It Fic if I Just Hurt Them in Other Ways

When Tim spots Jon sitting on the ground, back against the wall and eyes closed, he’s so relieved that he’s, for once, speechless. Martin, apparently, is not. 

“Jon!” he shouts, which elicits a jump from Jon--Tim can’t really blame him. Jon looks up, squinting in the dark, to try to figure out who’s said his name. It takes him a moment, but recognition clicks after a moment of Martin walking toward him, and he pushes himself to his feet, swaying slightly. “I thought--we couldn’t find you; I was so--I’m glad you’re alright.” His face is flushed with embarrassment at all the things that had almost come out in such a short span of time and Tim can’t help but smile. However, Jon, dense as always, doesn’t seem to notice. 

He nods, blinking a few times. “Martin,” Jon breathes, “Tim, Sasha. Are you hurt?” 

“We’re all fine, Jon,” Sasha replies, taking him by the hands and helping him to his feet, where he wavers unsteadily, like he’s having trouble reorienting. “Are YOU alright?” 

Another nod. “We need to get out of here,” he says, and there’s something off about his tone, something making it stilted and slow. 

“Come up with that all on your own, did you, now?” Tim teases. Predictably, Jon ignores the question. He’s not very receptive to jokes on a GOOD day, and even Tim has to admit that this is not the time. 

He’s just.

So nervous. 

What is there to do BUT joke? If this is the end, he’d rather not die scowling. 

Jon scowls. 

“We need a plan.”

Martin frowns at Jon, looking like he’s just watched Santa Claus take his beard off and found his uncle underneath, ruining the illusion. 

“You’re always the one with the plans.”

For a moment, Jon thinks so hard it looks physically painful, his face pinched and one hand pulling rather hard at his greying hair. 

“You’re the one who’s been skulking around down here every night,” Sasha accuses. “Don’t you know the way?” 

He rolls his eyes and winces. “It’s not every night,” he argues, “and the tunnels--they’re not exactly… easy to map. They change. They’ve been changing. I’ve tried.” 

“So, what do you suggest, we turn off the torches and follow our hearts?” Tim asks sardonically. “You’ve got to have SOMETHING, Jon. How have you gotten out of here all the other times?” 

The pause this time is so long that Tim sort of thinks that Jon’s not going to answer--in fact, there’s a decent chance that they’ve finally short-circuited him and that this, of all places, will be the place he breaks down. 

But even if he’s about to snap like a rubber band, he nods. 

“Right,” he agrees. “I’ve… figured it out before. I can do it now.” 

Tim isn’t sure whether that’s supposed to reassure the group or himself, but none of them look particularly convinced. 

“Stay close,” Tim orders to Martin and Sasha as Jon heads off in a seemingly random direction. “I don’t want anyone getting lost.”

After what feels like hours and may very well be, Tim is pretty sure that they’re ALL lost. Jon has been… clumsy, confused in his guidance, and while he’d originally been willing to chalk that up to nerves and adrenaline, the more time that passes, the more sure Tim becomes that Jon has no clue where he’s taking them.

Still, with no more knowledge of the tunnels than Jon has, he can’t exactly complain—

Until Jon begins to lead them down an all-too-familiar tunnel, evidenced by the small trail of subtle-yet-identifiable stacks of rocks that Tim has been leaving along the way to keep them from getting too lost. 

“Jon,” he calls, unable to keep the irritation from his tone. He doesn’t even blame him, not really, for their lack of direction, but he can’t stop the feelings. “We’ve already been down this way.” 

Jon’s blank, slightly dazed expression that Tim had attributed to intense focus doesn’t waver. A long beat passes, almost like this is some sort of test and now that he’s been told he’s made the wrong choice, that someone is going to tell him the right answer. 

“Are you… are we lost?” Martin asks. Of course he’s asking. He tries not to show it, but Martin is, at his core, an optimist, at least when it comes to Jon, and no matter how dark the situation, he’s always able to lose some last additional bit of hope he didn’t know he had. Again, Jon doesn’t reply; doesn’t even look sorry about it. 

“That’s a yes,” Sasha dismays. “Jon, how long have we been going in circles?” 

He shakes his head. “We’re not—” 

“We are,” Tim replies. “We have been. Because we’ve been following you.” 

Martin frowns. “You might have said something,” he says, a relatively light scolding but one which, coming from Martin, has Tim shocked. 

“Why didn’t you tell us we were lost, Jon?” Sasha demands. 

A shaky, shuddering breath, which could mean anything, is the only response. They wait several moments for Jon to defend himself, to explain his decision, to APOLOGIZE, at the very least. 

“Are you going to say ANYTHING?” Tim demands after a long silence, but when Jon doesn’t, it makes him less angry than he’d thought it might. It’s almost like he wasn’t registering their conversation at all. 

Tim can’t really see his face--it’s too dark. But he can hear Jon sway into the tunnel’s wall, or at least he can hear his shoulder making hard contact with the rock, and the irritation drains from him immediately. “Jon? Are you alright?” It occurs to him that he’d never quite answered that question earlier, and that’s probably because the answer was ‘no.’

“I’m--I just need a moment,” he requests slowly, and it suddenly occurs to Tim that it’s been so long since Jon’s said more than two words at a time that he has no idea for how long he’s been slurring his words. Tim takes him by the shoulders before he can collapse and helps him to sit on the ground, where he droops forward for a moment before shaking himself out of it. He apologizes. Tim ignores it. 

“Where are you hurt?” he demands. Martin shines his torch upon them to get a better look, and when Jon flinches harshly away from the light and covers his eyes with a curse, it clicks. “You hit your head, didn’t you?” 

Jon looks confused: genuinely confused, not just his typical uptight denial of anything that might concern the others. 

“I… It hurts,” he admits. “Don’t remember… I don’t know.” 

Somehow, Tim feels even more irrational anger at the fact that Jon WASN’T, for once, trying to hide anything from them. Tim has been concussed before--a few times in his life, mostly playing sports in school--and he knows that it can be difficult to tell that you’re anything more than shaken up and sore until it’s too difficult to even articulate it.

“He was just sitting on the ground when we found him,” Martin recalls, his tone laced with guilt for not having noticed sooner. “He probably fell.” 

“Martin, shine the torchlight here,” Tim instructs softly, shielding Jon’s eyes as best he can while scanning him for injuries. His palms are scraped, evidence that he likely had, indeed, fallen, and when he lists forward once more, the light is enough for Tim to notice the blood matted in Jon’s hair at the back of his head. He prods the wound, ignoring Jon’s protests and weak attempts to push his hands away and frowning when his fingers find a large bump and still-sticky blood. “Damn it, Jon.”

“What is it?” Martin frets, and Tim curses lowly. 

“He’s almost surely got a concussion. I’m surprised he’s even been able to get as far as he has without collapsing. It’s got to hurt.”

“He didn’t mention anything.”

“That’s Jon for you,” Tim says curtly--Sasha knows that just as well as he does. When she winces, he softens. “He probably didn’t remember falling. And a headache by itself doesn’t seem so important in the scheme of things, I suppose.” 

She nods. “I suppose. Can he walk?”

Guilt blossoms in his chest at even having to ask, but he shakes Jon’s shoulder--he’s not sure at what point in the conversation he might have drifted off, but at least he still wakes when Tim calls his name, even if he’s looking less present by the minute. 

“Jon, we have to get out of here. I know you’re tired, but could you walk?”

It takes a moment for Jon to sort through all that, and that moment is the least Tim can give him. Finally, he nods, slowly. 

“With some help, I think,” he ventures, and Tim and Martin close in on him. 

“Of course,” Martin reassures. “Ready?” Jon nods, eyes fluttering dangerously when Tim and Martin heave him up from under the arms. Jon can’t keep the small, pained cry from escaping his throat at the shift in elevation, and Tim doesn’t even have it in him to tease Martin about the soft cooing sounds he’s subconsciously making to comfort him. 

The sound of brick shifting stops them from setting off in some randomly-selected direction. All four of them freeze in their tracks, waiting for whatever is finally going to kill them, but what comes is just a voice. 

“Jonathan Sims,” the voice--Tim thinks it sounds male but he hates to assume--calls. 

“Who’s there?” Sasha shouts bravely. Tim’s heart skips a beat. “Show yourself.” 

“This does not concern you,” the voice replies, and Sasha hardens.

“It does if you want Jon, because I’m the one you’ll have to get through.” 

“Me, too,” Tim agrees. 

“And me!” Martin’s really changed since Tim’s met him. He both likes it and worries about it. 

“We don’t have much time. I need to talk to him. My intention is not to harm any of you.” 

Tim snarls, disbelieving but… But then, what other choice do they have?

“If that’s true,” he begins, earning himself glares from Sasha and Martin which are so aggressive that he can practically feel them burning, “then he’ll only talk to you on the surface. Show us the way out, and we’ll see about… whatever it is you want.” 

The voice sighs, almost as if impatient, but agrees. “Very well,” it says. “Follow me.” 

As is so often Tim’s motivation these days, he follows someone he certainly doesn’t trust deeper into the darkness and danger solely because he’s got no other options. 


End file.
